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Nootropics - and the healthy

Piracetam -nootropics have also shown the ability to improve learning and memory in healthy individuals not suffering from disease or severe age-related degeneration. In 1976 Dimond and Brouwers reported the results of some of a series of seven double blind trials, involving 16 second and third year college students "in excellent health and good physical and mental condition."

Subjects received either 4.8 grams a day Piracetam or placebo for 14 days. In three different measures of verbal learning and memory, the results showed a highly significant difference in favor of the Piracetam students over the controls, with confidence levels of P=.01, P=.02 and P=.01. The authors stated "the fact is that Piracetam improves verbal learning and in this it would appear to be a substance which is.. capable of extending the intellectual functions of man.. our subjects were not senile, suffering from generalized brain disorder, confusional states, or any other pathology of the brain... It is therefore possible to extend the power which [individuals gifted with high intelligence and good memory] possess to still higher levels despite the fact that the range of their achievement is a high."

Giurgea and Salama report the confirmation of Dimond/ Brouwer's work by Wedl and Suchenwirth in 1977. Wedl found significant improvement in mental performance in a group of 17 healthy young volunteers given 3.2 grams per day Piracetam for five days.

Mindus and colleagues (1976) reported the results of a double blind crossover trial with 18 healthy middle aged people (median age 56), with no evidence of somatic or mental disease, based on medical records and administration of several intelligence tests (group mean IQ; 120 plus or minus 11).

Most of the subjects were in intellectually demanding jobs, but had reported a slight reduction for some years in their capacity to retain or recall information.

After four weeks of 4.8 grams per day Piracetam, Piracetam subjects were switched to placebo for four weeks, while the original placebo group then received Piracetam for four weeks.

Results of a series of paper and pencil tests, as well as computerised tests to measure perceptual motor reactions, showed a clear benefit of Piracetam over placebo.

The three different paper and pencil tests showed superior effects on performance compared to placebo, with confidence levels of P<.001, P<.001 and P<.05. In four of the six computerised tests Piracetam showed a significant effect over placebo, with confidence levels of P<.05 for three and P<.029 for the fourth.

A fifth test showed a clear trend in favor of Piracetam, with P<.10. Wilsher and co-workers (1979) related their results with 4.8 grams per day Piracetam in a double blind, crossover trial to study the benefits of Piracetam for dyslexic students.

Interestingly, the 14 healthy student controls, matched for IQ with the dyslexic subjects, demonstrated a significantly better result on a test measuring ability to memorise nonsense syllables while using Piracetam as compared to placebo.

Their improvement from baseline was a 19.5% decrease in the number of trials needed to learn the nonsense syllables while using Piracetam, versus a 10.9% decrease from baseline while using placebo. P<.05. Piracetam-nootropics may increase learning and memory in healthy individuals, where they are not merely attenuating or reversing pathology, through their distinctive power to promote what has been termed "hemispheric super-connection."

The cerebral cortex in humans and animals is divided into two hemispheres- the left and right cortex. In most humans the left hemisphere (which controls the right side of the body) is the language center, as well as the dominant hemisphere. The left cortex will tend to be logical, analytical, linguistic and sequential in its information processing, while the right cortex will usually be intuitive, holistic, picture oriented and simultaneous in its information processing. Research has shown most people favor one hemisphere over the other, with the dominant cortex being more electrically active and the nondominant cortex relatively more electrically silent (when the person is being tested or asked to solve problems, or respond to information). The two cortical hemispheres are linked by a bundle of nerve "cables"; the corpus callosum and the anterior commisure. In theory these two structures should unite the function of the two hemispheres; in practice they act more like a wall separating them. This "functionally-split" neurology produces a parallel set of dichotomies in consciousness; logic vs. intuition; reason vs. emotion; analysis vs. synthesis; parts vs. whole; words vs. pictures; science vs. art and religion, etc. As noted earlier, the word "nootropic" is derived from the Greek word "nous" (the more standard philosophical spelling). Yet in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, "nous" did not simply mean "mind." In ancient Greek philosophy, "nous" referred to the faculty of "higher mind" or "reason," as opposed to the more concrete, sensory oriented mind which humans share even with the lower animals. And "reason" did not merely mean logic or analysis.

The Greek philosophers saw the role of philosophy to be a method of developing and perfecting nous/ reason. They understood nous/ reason to be the integrative mind, where logic works complementarily with intuition, and reason and emotion are in harmony. With a developed nous, one could clearly see and understand "the forest and the trees" simultaneously. From a modern neurological perspective it is obvious that the cerebral basis for a well-functioning nous would be the effective, complementary, simultaneous integrated function of cortical hemispheres, with neither hemisphere being automatically dominant or silent.

This in turn would require the corpus callosum and anterior commisure to optimise information flow between the two hemispheres. Research has shown the Piracetam-nootropics to facilitate such intercebral information transfer- indeed, it's part of the definition of a "nootropic drug."

Giurgea and Moyersoons reported in 1970 that Piracetam increased by 100% the transcallosal evoked responses elicited in cats by stimulation of one hemisphere and recorded from a symmetrical region of the hemisphere.

Buresova and Bures (1976) in a complex series of experiments involving monocular (one-eye) learning in rats, demonstrated that "...Piracetam enhances transcommisural encoding mechanisms... and some forms interhemispheric transfer..."

Dimond (1976, 1979) used a technique called "dichotic listening" to verify the ability of Piracetam to promote interhemispheric transfer in humans. In a dichotic listening test, different words are transmitted simultaneously into each ear by headphone. In most people the speech center is the left cortex, because the nerves from the ears cross over to the opposite side of the brain, most people will recall more of the words presented right ear than the left ear. Words received by the right ear directly reach the left cortex speech center, while words presented to the left ear must reach the left cortex speech center indirectly, by crossing the corpus callosum. Dimond's experiments with young healthy volunteers showed that Piracetam significantly improved left ear word recall, indicating Piracetam increased interhemispheric information transfer